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Controversy! Development director David Georgeson of EverQuest Next believes that, while there's "nothing wrong" with subscriptions, we should all want our MMOs in free-to-play flavour. It's to 'our benefit'.

Put simply, if the experience is free-to-play then it has to be entertaining or "we don't make a dime." The F2P games are "street performers" while $60 up front is 'a gamble'.

We shell out all those hard-earned clams for the latest MMO or whatever only to find it's a bit of a dud, while if it were 'free' then we could simply not drop a single shiny in their hat.

"There’s nothing wrong with the subscription model. I have personal opinions, which I’ll go ahead and share because I’m just that cocksure of myself," he told IGN. "I think that free-to-play is the way that gamers should want their MMOs to be, and the reason I think that is that if we don’t do a really good job and we don’t entertain the player, we don’t make a dime."

"We’re effectively street performers: we go out there and sing and dance and if we do a good job, people throw coins into the hat. And I think that’s the way games should be, because paying $60 up front to take a gamble on whether the game is good or not? You don’t get that money back."

"So if you buy a turkey, you’ve just wasted your money. With free-to-play you get to go in, take a look at it and find out. It’s entirely our responsibility to make sure you’re entertained. That’s the way things should be in my opinion with free-to-play."

EverQuest Next is Sony Online's major new fantasy RPG MMO with EverQuest Landmark expanding into a full-fledged spin-off, with SOE's Player Studio also expanding from May 1st beyond the US and into Europe. It's where players can create and even sell their own designs to others.

Are free-to-play models more 'rewarding' in terms of content quality for gamers?